Sitting at home, watching TV and feeling just a little sorry for myself. Today (Monday) I've spent the day at home, with a pretty severe headache. Didn't move most of the day, and spent a decent amount of it asleep. A pity, really, as the weekend was a pretty good one, although Thursday and Friday were extremely ordinary. Back-tracking..........
Cycle 3 started on Thursday, and went very smoothly. I'd had a meeting with the oncologist on Wednesday, and he'd taken me through the process from here. I will have a CT scan in Canberra today fortnight. By then, half way through the treatment, the cancer should be showing one of two situations: either unchanged or worse, in which case we need to vary the treatment, or showing signs of improvement, in which case we consider what to do next - positively!! I'm feeling very confident - and quietly, so is the oncologist.
Thursday afternoon and Friday I was as ordinary as I've been. Very lethargic, easily tired and very fuzzy in the head. The anti-nausea drugs seemed to be working overtime, with me doing lots of heavy gulping hoping nothing else eventuated! Then on Saturday and Sunday, I felt pretty well, and we did a fair amount, including visiting WhiteHart Vineyard and going for a couple of walks. Then Harry Potter in the comfort of Dendy Premium (the only cinema which gives FF points!). Great movie and a very presentable pizza delivered directly to the Jason Recliner!! Fantastic!
Today, average and very dusty. This evening, tho, a little better. Top Gear cheered me right up!!
Oh and the hair? So far, its hanging in there: wispier than before, but sort of cute - or at least thats' what Gaye says, and she wouldn't lie to me!! THe girls in the clinic expect me to be nude-nutted each time they see me. Bad luck, kids.
Monday 30 July 2007
Friday 20 July 2007
A Quick Update
C2D16. Another week has passed, and apart from the fact that I can't shake a cold that I've now had for nearly two weeks, everything is going fine.
The hair situation has stabilised, and while I am very,very wispy, I am hanging on to a little. And if you caught me in a good light, you might think I was merely balding badly. I am assured by a couple of nurses, and one of my favourite naysayers, that I will be egg-like after the next major jolt - next Thursday. Thanks guys. Some have suggested a wig, others the currently fashionable tight gangsta beanie, and my in-laws a pom-pom topped hand-knitted number. I'm thinkin' snap-brimmed black fedora. Definitely more my style. I'll post photos.
I go in for the the first of Cycle 3 on Thursday next week. After the completion of this cycle - i.e. in just over three weeks from now, down to Sydney for a mid-treatment PET scan to see what's happening with the little sucker.
I don't really want to harp on it, but I am actually being treated very kindly by this process, and I'm reminded of it every time I go into the clinic (remember, twice a week for blood test and pump change). Most of those I meet are pretty debilitated by their treatment, and more than a couple look like death warmed up! My four days of crap after each jolt seems like a bonus! Not that I'm complaining, mind you!!
I suspect that the next treatment will affect me a little more heavily, there seems to be a slight accumulative affect.
Since I last blogged, Michael Milton, well known disabled down-hill skiing hero, has announced that he has an aggressive cancer in his oesophagus. Given his progress since losing his leg to bone cancer when he was eight or nine, this would be the last thing he would have expected. Michael and I both addressed a conference in Canberra in November last year. I sincerely hope we're not establishing a cancer cluster for the attendees! I wish him every bit of luck that I hope to have. (Incidentally, Michael got paid a shitload of money for his short speech, while I donated my much more amusing and better-received two hour workshop. Not that I'm bitter!).
The hair situation has stabilised, and while I am very,very wispy, I am hanging on to a little. And if you caught me in a good light, you might think I was merely balding badly. I am assured by a couple of nurses, and one of my favourite naysayers, that I will be egg-like after the next major jolt - next Thursday. Thanks guys. Some have suggested a wig, others the currently fashionable tight gangsta beanie, and my in-laws a pom-pom topped hand-knitted number. I'm thinkin' snap-brimmed black fedora. Definitely more my style. I'll post photos.
I go in for the the first of Cycle 3 on Thursday next week. After the completion of this cycle - i.e. in just over three weeks from now, down to Sydney for a mid-treatment PET scan to see what's happening with the little sucker.
I don't really want to harp on it, but I am actually being treated very kindly by this process, and I'm reminded of it every time I go into the clinic (remember, twice a week for blood test and pump change). Most of those I meet are pretty debilitated by their treatment, and more than a couple look like death warmed up! My four days of crap after each jolt seems like a bonus! Not that I'm complaining, mind you!!
I suspect that the next treatment will affect me a little more heavily, there seems to be a slight accumulative affect.
Since I last blogged, Michael Milton, well known disabled down-hill skiing hero, has announced that he has an aggressive cancer in his oesophagus. Given his progress since losing his leg to bone cancer when he was eight or nine, this would be the last thing he would have expected. Michael and I both addressed a conference in Canberra in November last year. I sincerely hope we're not establishing a cancer cluster for the attendees! I wish him every bit of luck that I hope to have. (Incidentally, Michael got paid a shitload of money for his short speech, while I donated my much more amusing and better-received two hour workshop. Not that I'm bitter!).
Wednesday 11 July 2007
From the desk of Tony the Balding (really rapidly)
A number of people have commented that I'm now experiencing what they've been going through for years. Yep, I can see where they're coming from, but I have to say that what has taken some of you 35 years to achieve, i.e. an almost totally nude skull, I have had done to me in something less than a week!
And here's the thing - chemo is a bully. It picks off the crowning glory stuff with a laugh and a leer, and doesn't even touch the socially undesirable stuff that normally you'd pay others to take care of. What I mean is, the head hair generally is extremely wispy, but the little clumps in the ears and nose? Still rampant!
But I'm sort of persisting with it at the moment, despite initially thinking that I'd whip it all off at the first sign of thinning. I'm now going to see how bad it looks before I go that path.
In other news, last Thursday was Cycle2, Day1: today is therefore C2D7. Reaction for the four days after about the same as last time, perhaps a little worse - maybe there's something in this accumulation effect they promised me. And I've picked up a nasty head cold. When I had my blood test this morning, they told me it would be okay as long as it didn't get to my chest, in which case they might have to stop the treatment. No way that's going to happen!
Ran into an old work colleague last week who also has cancer. He's been down the Gawler Institute route, and follows the protocols pretty strictly, including two hours of meditation a day. Even Ian Gawler was apparently impressed by his positivity.
Mum's 93rd birthday on Sunday last, and the clan gathered to celebrate. 40-odd of us, with four generations and around a dozen great grandchildren. A terrific gathering, and lovely for me to see and catch up with all the nieces and nephews apart from those in Japan and England, and Townsville.
I'm being careful at work, sticking solidly to my comfort zone, and not taking on anything that will unduly stress me. Seems sensible.
Paul Craft (oncologist) and I have decided that I will have another PET scan after Cycle 3 to assess the progress of the chemo. I can feel in my bones that it will be a positive result (in that the cancer will be much reduced, of course). If that's the case, Brisbane plans are back on track - house on the market in September/October, with a move into the Brisbane house in mid-January 2008.
And here's the thing - chemo is a bully. It picks off the crowning glory stuff with a laugh and a leer, and doesn't even touch the socially undesirable stuff that normally you'd pay others to take care of. What I mean is, the head hair generally is extremely wispy, but the little clumps in the ears and nose? Still rampant!
But I'm sort of persisting with it at the moment, despite initially thinking that I'd whip it all off at the first sign of thinning. I'm now going to see how bad it looks before I go that path.
In other news, last Thursday was Cycle2, Day1: today is therefore C2D7. Reaction for the four days after about the same as last time, perhaps a little worse - maybe there's something in this accumulation effect they promised me. And I've picked up a nasty head cold. When I had my blood test this morning, they told me it would be okay as long as it didn't get to my chest, in which case they might have to stop the treatment. No way that's going to happen!
Ran into an old work colleague last week who also has cancer. He's been down the Gawler Institute route, and follows the protocols pretty strictly, including two hours of meditation a day. Even Ian Gawler was apparently impressed by his positivity.
Mum's 93rd birthday on Sunday last, and the clan gathered to celebrate. 40-odd of us, with four generations and around a dozen great grandchildren. A terrific gathering, and lovely for me to see and catch up with all the nieces and nephews apart from those in Japan and England, and Townsville.
I'm being careful at work, sticking solidly to my comfort zone, and not taking on anything that will unduly stress me. Seems sensible.
Paul Craft (oncologist) and I have decided that I will have another PET scan after Cycle 3 to assess the progress of the chemo. I can feel in my bones that it will be a positive result (in that the cancer will be much reduced, of course). If that's the case, Brisbane plans are back on track - house on the market in September/October, with a move into the Brisbane house in mid-January 2008.
Tuesday 3 July 2007
Gone today!!
I spoke too bloody soon! After the walk/run with Oscar the Dog this morning, found clumps of hair in the beanie, then more in the shower (sob!). Bugger. I'm wondering how I can slip this past the girls in the clinic tomorrow - of course by Thursday it'll be too obvious.
So mark this day down: C1D20 - hair starts to disappear!!
So mark this day down: C1D20 - hair starts to disappear!!
Monday 2 July 2007
Hair today............
Just a short update before I go into the second cycle of chemo.
So far, the past three weeks have been very kind to me. With the exception of the first weekend after C1D1, I have been really well, with no real side effects worth commenting on - although to be fair I imagined that I have had all of the possible symptoms for at least one minute each.
And the thing is that I still have my hair! The nurses in the clinic were very emphatic on this: "you will lose your hair!" and their best guess was C1D12-D14. Here we are at C1D19, and no clumps of bottle blond on the pillow in the morning, no excess hair in the hair brush, no hair clogging the drain after the morning shower. Ha! I'll show them! I refuse to bow to traditional chemo reaction. I will NOT lose my hair! And if I do, I'm going to keep my eyebrows.
A small crisis on Saturday, when one of the clamps in the line between the chemo bottle and the hole in my chest came slightly undone, allowing blood and mixed-in chemo to seep through onto my T-shirt and jumper. Problem was, we were at the shopping centre, so it was all a bit obvious. We raced me off to the ER at Canberra Hospital, where they re-attached things, put in a new port, and chucked my clothing into a toxic waste bucket (they're purple!). Bloody hell, that's what I've got coursing through my veins, and its too dangerous to touch? That was an interesting touch.
Oh, and I tried out the compatibility of my chemo pump with airport security checks last week too. The rent-a-cop security types didn't like it, and asked obvious questions, like: " Would you take that off and put it through the x-ray machine, please Sir?" But when they eventually got the idea, they just went over me with a fine-toothed comb (the metal detecting wand, actually). It only took a few minutes, and then I was on my way. I am guessing, tho, that I would need a note from my mother if I was intending to fly internationally - the bottle holds more than 100mls! And I bet I wouldn't get into the States at all. hooked up like I am now. Happy to be proven wrong of course ....
I had a lovely email last week from a stranger who was referred to the blog by a friend (who I also didn't know) who thought she might find it useful in her particular circumstances. She did, and let me know. It made my day. Feel free to pass the address on to anybody you think might be interested or find it useful.
And I am back at work full time, and have been for around six weeks. I've missed a couple of Sydney meetings, but otherwise am fully engaged back in the business of PEPworldwide. I've stepped aside from the top job into a role responsible for marketing and communication.
So far, the past three weeks have been very kind to me. With the exception of the first weekend after C1D1, I have been really well, with no real side effects worth commenting on - although to be fair I imagined that I have had all of the possible symptoms for at least one minute each.
And the thing is that I still have my hair! The nurses in the clinic were very emphatic on this: "you will lose your hair!" and their best guess was C1D12-D14. Here we are at C1D19, and no clumps of bottle blond on the pillow in the morning, no excess hair in the hair brush, no hair clogging the drain after the morning shower. Ha! I'll show them! I refuse to bow to traditional chemo reaction. I will NOT lose my hair! And if I do, I'm going to keep my eyebrows.
A small crisis on Saturday, when one of the clamps in the line between the chemo bottle and the hole in my chest came slightly undone, allowing blood and mixed-in chemo to seep through onto my T-shirt and jumper. Problem was, we were at the shopping centre, so it was all a bit obvious. We raced me off to the ER at Canberra Hospital, where they re-attached things, put in a new port, and chucked my clothing into a toxic waste bucket (they're purple!). Bloody hell, that's what I've got coursing through my veins, and its too dangerous to touch? That was an interesting touch.
Oh, and I tried out the compatibility of my chemo pump with airport security checks last week too. The rent-a-cop security types didn't like it, and asked obvious questions, like: " Would you take that off and put it through the x-ray machine, please Sir?" But when they eventually got the idea, they just went over me with a fine-toothed comb (the metal detecting wand, actually). It only took a few minutes, and then I was on my way. I am guessing, tho, that I would need a note from my mother if I was intending to fly internationally - the bottle holds more than 100mls! And I bet I wouldn't get into the States at all. hooked up like I am now. Happy to be proven wrong of course ....
I had a lovely email last week from a stranger who was referred to the blog by a friend (who I also didn't know) who thought she might find it useful in her particular circumstances. She did, and let me know. It made my day. Feel free to pass the address on to anybody you think might be interested or find it useful.
And I am back at work full time, and have been for around six weeks. I've missed a couple of Sydney meetings, but otherwise am fully engaged back in the business of PEPworldwide. I've stepped aside from the top job into a role responsible for marketing and communication.
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